


just looking at you i enjoy myself

by suitablyskippy



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: (spoilers for first trial), Gen, M/M, Mental Instability, murder plots as far as the eye can see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitablyskippy/pseuds/suitablyskippy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hm?” says Komaeda, and looks down at the grip he’s still got, cold and clammy and squeezed uncomfortably tight. “Oh – <i>that</i>! Of course! You know, sometimes, Hinata-kun – sometimes I <i>forget</i>, when I’m touching you! Because it feels so natural. Like you and I are one, almost! Like we were always <i>meant</i> to be this close – do you know what I mean? Do you feel it?”</p>
<p>“You’re still holding my wrist,” says Hinata.</p>
<p>Komaeda lets him go, and then he touches his elbow, gently, as though in consolation. “With my luck the way it is,” he says, “no one’s gonna be able to kill me unless I let them.”</p>
<p>(<i>Someone's</i> got to die next, and Komaeda would really, really like it to be him!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is set at no particular point during canon, and there are no spoilers past the LP. some more characters have died, but i chose which ones by putting everyone's names into a random generator and picking the first two, just to be on the safe side - you may read on in spoiler-free safety!

It isn’t a routine – _yet_ , thinks Hinata, and pulls the knot of his tie tight in the bathroom mirror – but breakfast the morning after a trial: he’s expecting tears, he’s expecting fights, he’s expecting, most of all, this hard flat grief and the sense that whatever drama bursts out, no one’s got their heart in it. There are long dark stripes below his reflection’s eyes; he runs a comb through his hair and doesn’t meet them. 

He scoops his door key from his bedside table and lets himself out. This early in the day there’s a breeze, clammy and salty, skimming in from the ocean and whipping round the cottages, whistling through their gaps. Even locking his door feels like a pointless –

“Hinata-kun!” says Komaeda, and Hinata startles so violently he fumbles his key. 

“Have you been _waiting_ for me?”

“Off to breakfast? A great idea! It’s very important you keep your strength up!”

Hinata shoves his key into his pocket and then he takes in a deep breath, and he lets it out. The damp brackish smell of the ocean fills him up. “How long,” he says, very deliberately, and Komaeda offers him a bright and encouraging smile, “have you been waiting out here for me?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it _waiting_ ,” says Komaeda, and he pushes himself away from the wall of Hinata’s cottage. “You _are_ off to breakfast, aren’t you, Hinata-kun? I meant it when I said it’s important you keep your strength up! – for everyone else’s benefit just as much as for yours! It wouldn’t do for our hope to starve – our greatest hope, just – withered away! You’d be dead, and not even the challenge of a trial to show for it!” 

Hinata waits for a moment, just in case he finds, somewhere, a final reserve of energy he can use to get angry; but none manifests, and he pushes past Komaeda down the boardwalk. “I’m not talking to you.” 

“No problem! I’m happy just to be at your side! Hey, Hinata-kun –” footsteps hurrying after him, and he fixes his gaze on the distant red-slate hotel roof and doesn’t look round, “– there was something I wanted to talk to _you_ about, actually! A sort of idea I’ve had. About us!”

The wooden slats squeak, creak, groan in protest at the stamp of his sneakers. 

“An idea to raise you up – _light_ you up, like the beacon I _know_ you can be! – shining out in a dark and worthless world, drawing moths toward your light –” voices veer up from behind the cottages, raucous and distant, and Hinata isn’t listening, isn’t listening to a single one of Komaeda’s breathless words, either – and he hates that he knows how little time it takes Komaeda to lose his breath when he’s talking – when he’s _raving_ – “except the moths are _ordinary_ people, and they don’t catch fire and _die_ when they’re close to you – they catch fire and _burn_! With hope! Because of you! You can keep them burning, Hinata-kun, with my plan!”

“Komaeda,” says Hinata, and when he turns around Komaeda has clenched his fists from the sheer extreme delight of being directly addressed. “If I give you thirty seconds to explain your plan – can you fuck off after that? And never tell me about it again?”

“Of course! Anything you like!”

“Okay,” says Hinata. He feels like he ought to brace himself against whatever bullshit bombshell Komaeda’s preparing, but he hasn’t got a clue where he could even begin; so he rubs a hand down his face and keeps his voice steady. “I’m counting – _now_.”

“The most important part is going to be working around the littering rule,” says Komaeda, at once abruptly, uncannily businesslike. “So after – maybe an hour? –” he’s talking with his hands, wide choppy gestures, “– or more –” and he fans one hand out, “– or less –” and he fans the other hand out, “– whichever you prefer! –” and he presses them together at his chest as the wind whisks up his hair into a pale feathery mess and he beams, “– you’re going to have to drag my body back onto the beach. From the sea! You’ll leave me in the sea to destroy evidence – once you’ve killed me, that is! That’s the plan,” he clarifies, and laughs. “You kill me!”

“Okay,” says Hinata, again, after a moment. “No.”

“I’ve thought the whole thing through,” says Komaeda, earnestly. “It’s watertight! If anyone cracks your case, it won’t be without _true_ talent – won’t be without _inspirational_ levels of hope –” 

“I don’t give a shit,” says Hinata, and he turns and keeps walking. The door to Souda’s cottage is propped wide open; he doesn’t stop. The boardwalk squeaks. 

“Hinata-kun –”

“Not even talking about it.”

“No problem!” says Komaeda, again, sunny as the clouds are threatening to pull back and make the day; and then it’s quiet, except for the whistle of the wind and the damp heavy creaks of the boardwalk’s bolts, and the wind rushes and rustles through the long grass outside the cottages and Hinata walks faster. 

“If you _did_ kill me,” says Komaeda, after a moment, “would you rather it was hands-on? – or hands-off? Or –”

“Just – _stop_ it,” says Hinata; and, unexpectedly, Komaeda does. 

 

\----

 

At breakfast he pulls out the seat beside Saionji and drops down and scoots in close, as fast as he can; and it must be _too_ fast, too obviously desperate, because she says: “Don’t worry, Hinata-kun – I’m _more_ than used to big boys who wanna get close to me,” and kicks his ankle with the hard wooden edge of her sandal, smirking down at his buttered toast. 

At the far end of the table Komaeda sits between two empty seats and eats rice with his elbows on the table and his eyes on his food, and he wears a private smile of great serenity. Saionji lets the wide hanging sleeve of her kimono drag slowly up Hinata’s thigh and: “Can you _stop_?” he snaps and she whispers, wide-eyed and syrupy, “Isn’t this what you’re after, big bro?” and when he says: “It’s seriously not,” she kicks him, harder, hard enough he flinches and drops his glass. Water splashes across his plate and she presses her hand to her mouth and giggles. 

Conversation at the table carves itself out carefully round the sides of the execution and Komaeda doesn’t try to talk to anyone; Komaeda doesn’t promise death to anyone; Hinata doesn’t catch Komaeda’s stare of unbearable, fanatical fondness fixed on him even once. Though Saionji on the rampage is enough to drive any man to distraction, it’s not her who’s drawing his uneasy attention; it’s not her who’s setting him on edge and brittle with discomfort. 

 

\----

 

“And here we have History of Bears,” says Sonia, with a tone of such reverence the capitals fall audibly into place, and she trails her fingertips down the sleek polished side of the closest stack. “There are many fascinating tomes within these shelves! I’ve never known a library like it, Hinata-san – Japan is _truly_ an astonishing environment!”

Hinata trails after her, round the library’s mezzanine floor. The arching dark wood beams that support the ceiling start only a little way above their heads, up here; the main room is a long way down and gloomily lit with shaded ornate lamps. If he could think of a less tedious way to spend the morning he’d take it; but as it is he’d rather be bored than dead, or talking to Tanaka. “I guess?” he says, after a moment, because there’s something weirdly commanding about Sonia’s constant bubbling effervescence. “When you’re not being memory-wiped and murdered, at least.” 

“That’s the spirit!” she says, and merrily shakes one squeezed-shut fist at him. 

She dances between shelves; he trudges behind her. When the main doors swing back with a burst of outdoor noise – wind and crashing surf and Ibuki hollering raucously – and then back with a _whump_ , and silence, Sonia seizes his shoulder and presses one perfectly manicured finger to her lips, eyes wide and thrilled and seaside blue. Hinata sighs, and then he nods, and they sneak quietly across to the railing. 

It’s Komaeda. It was never not going to be Komaeda. Komaeda padding up and down the aisles, peering round for – for what? there’s no way of telling but regardless, Hinata feels entirely certain it’s _him_ he’s after – tracking sandy footprints behind him on the dark rose carpet. 

“Should we hide?” whispers Sonia, noisily, and looks up at him, still clutching his arm to her. She offers a smile she probably means to be mischievous but instead it comes out so radiant Hinata’s temporarily blinded, and he blinks, suddenly speechless. “Or should we startle him? _Do_ let’s!” 

“Uh,” says Hinata, “we should – what?”

“Give Komaeda-san the shock of his _life_!” she says, and then she slings herself half across the railing and waves, wildly. “Up here, Komaeda-san!”

“ _Sonia_ –” says Hinata, but it’s too late. 

“There you are! And Hinata-kun, too – what a wonderful surprise! Good afternoon!”

“I hope you are well!” says Sonia, who’s maintaining her hushed and respectful library whisper but at such a ridiculous volume she may as well speak normally, for all the good it’s doing. 

“Very much so! Thank you for asking!”

“It’s my pleasure, Komaeda-san!”

“You’re too kind to me, Sonia-san!”

Sonia’s dimpling again, ready to respond, and Hinata – drumming his fingers on the smooth and finely sculpted railing of the mezzanine – is heading right on course to lose his temper with the both of them. “Sonia,” he says, in an _actual_ whisper, “why are you talking to this guy?”

“Manners!” she says. “That’s something you learn as royalty, Hinata-san. It doesn’t matter how awful your people may be – they are still _people_ , and, unless they’re trying to usurp you, they must always have first dibs on your respect!”

“Right,” he says, unconvinced. “Except Komaeda’s not even from your country.”

Sonia tuts at him. 

“Hey, Sonia-san –” down on the ground Komaeda’s still standing with his head tilted back, hands in the pockets of his coat, calling softly up, “– would you mind if I borrowed Hinata-kun for a couple of minutes? I promise I’ll have him back right away, good as new!”

“Two minutes!” Sonia calls back. “As long as I may supervise!” 

“Two minutes is perfect, Sonia-san! Two minutes of Hinata-kun’s time is _far_ more than I deserve! Two whole minutes he’d choose to waste in my miserable, worthless company!” 

“I _didn’t_ choose –”

“My ears are zipped!” says Sonia, and winks, in a terrible parody of confidentiality, and then she dips her head so far it sets her bow flouncing and she whispers: “I have your back, Hinata-san – don’t worry about a thing!” 

“Right,” says Hinata, flatly. “Sure. That’s comforting.”

Komaeda hurries up the narrow curving staircase. “Two minutes!” he says, before Hinata can remind him, and seizes his wrist to pull him into the depths of Modern Literature, in a strip of musty light from one of the high windows. “I’m ready to make this brief!”

“Good,” says Hinata. “Let go of me.”

“Hm?” says Komaeda, and looks down at the grip he’s still got, cold and clammy and squeezed uncomfortably tight. “Oh – _that_! Of course! You know, sometimes, Hinata-kun – sometimes I _forget_ , when I’m touching you! Because it feels so _natural_. Like you and I are one, almost! Like we were always _meant_ to be this close – do you know what I mean? Do you feel it?”

“You’re still holding my wrist,” says Hinata. 

Komaeda lets him go, and then he touches his elbow, gently, as though in consolation. “With my luck the way it is,” he says, “no one’s gonna be able to kill me unless I let them.” 

“Right,” says Hinata, after a moment, stilled by a blank, incredulous horror that’s really not as incredulous as it should be: because, at this point, he’d believe anything of Komaeda. “You’re still _on_ this?” 

“It’s not a problem if you don’t want to do it, Hinata-kun! It’s what I’d _prefer_ – but my preferences don’t come into it – you should know that! I don’t have the right to a say in _anything_!”

“ _Hushed_ tones in the library, if you don’t mind!” sing-songs Sonia, behind the stacks. 

“It wouldn’t matter if Sonia-san heard,” whispers Komaeda quickly, reassuringly, and his coat’s too baggy on his narrow shoulders and it falls too loosely when he shrugs, and it’s not reassuring in the slightest. “Not in the long run! If you won’t kill me then I’ll take my plan to someone else. I’m sure _someone_ here would be willing to trade my life in for all of your sakes, Hinata-kun, even if you’re not!”

“But,” says Hinata, and before he licks his lips he raises his hand to his mouth, so Komaeda won’t see, “but if you did that – I’d already know your plan. I _know_ your plan. The trial would be a joke.”

“Oh, no,” says Komaeda, “you don’t have any idea! – not of the _full_ plan! You’ve got scarcely the barest bones of it, really!”

Hinata looks at him. It’s a dubious look. Round the corner Sonia’s humming, quiet and tuneless; there’s the soft thump of leather spine against leather spine as she flips through the shelves but he doesn’t trust for a moment that she’s not eavesdropping. “So – what’s the full plan,” he says, voice as flat as he can flatten it. 

“Well!” says Komaeda. “Did you know there are shelves upon _shelves_ of disposable barbecues in the supermarket?”

“No,” says Hinata, and then, after a moment: “So _they’re_ in your – plan?”

“A- _ha_!” says Komaeda, and brightens up even brighter than before. “I think I see your interest perking, Hinata-kun! But – I’m afraid I’m not like you, you know. I’m selfish – I’m _chronically_ selfish, _utterly_ self-absorbed – I couldn’t possibly tell you the details till I’m sure you’ll kill me. Say, is that two minutes?”

“Wait –”

“Time sure flies when you’re having fun, huh? And you know all I _ever_ have with you is fun – just _looking_ at you I enjoy myself – hey!” and abruptly Komaeda raises his voice to the same ridiculous pressurised whisper Sonia was using earlier, noisy in the stillness of the library, “Sonia-san! Time’s up, and I promised you Hinata-kun back!”

“ _Wait_ ,” says Hinata, and grabs for Komaeda’s elbow as he moves to turn away. His coat’s thin; his elbow’s bony; his eyes are wide and he stares at Hinata’s hand like he’s sighted God. “Wait – is that what I have to do? To get the details? Of your plan, I mean – you’d tell me if – if I promised to kill you?”

But Komaeda’s attention diverts entirely to returning the hearty fistbump Sonia offers him when she swoops in, round the end of the aisle, the breeze of her skirt swishing out around her stirring up dust in the muted daylight. “A prompt and excellent exchange, Komaeda-san! Good job!”

“Oh, there’s no need to waste your compliments on _me_ , Sonia-san!” 

“A compliment is never a waste! Compliments are all _kinds_ of essential for first-class friendship to develop!”

“But you’re simply wasting your _breath_ by directing compliments to such a base, unessential lifeform as _me_!”

“You are _not_ that variety of lifeform! – you are a _young man_!”

“A _base_ young man!”

“A _fine_ young man!”

“An _unessential_ –”

“Komaeda – _Komaeda_ –” and Komaeda, caught up in passionate argument with an equally passionate Sonia, falls nevertheless obligingly silent. Hinata clears his throat before he speaks, in case it stops his voice from catching. “There’s something in your coat pocket.”

“Is there?”

“Yes,” says Hinata, and Komaeda turns back toward him and looks curiously down at his own coat, at the bulky, heavy object weighing it down on one side, dragging the stitches out of their ordinary shape into something Hinata hopes to God isn’t what it looks like, “yes, there fucking is.”

“I’ve got – hmm, sunflower seeds? You’re welcome to them if you’d like them, Hinata-kun, there’s no need to be shy in asking! Just _tell_ me if you –” 

“ _Other_ pocket,” says Hinata. “The one with a – with what I _hope_ ,” he says, and he’s keeping his voice so steady it’s toneless and that’s a good start, at least, “is not a hammer inside it.”

“Oh! – oh, the _other_ pocket,” says Komaeda, “the _other_ one,” and he rummages for a moment before pulling out what _is_ , in fact, a hammer: a mildly tarnished clawhammer of a compact size with an orange rubber grip, and he slings it hand to hand and laughs to himself. “I should have guessed – of _course_ you wouldn’t be interested in food my hands have already touched! There’s no reason you’d want _that_ filth in your mouth –”

“ _Why_ are you carrying a fucking _hammer_ about with you?” interrupts Hinata, and Komaeda widens his eyes meaningfully and says: “For _you_ , Hinata-kun!” and Hinata’s stomach twists and lurches and drops right out of him. _Every_ single time – every single time he thinks he’s heard the worst, he’s seen the worst, he’s dealt with the worst that Komaeda’s got to offer – every single time he’s _wrong_ – 

“Do you know,” he says, and though he tries to keep it even he can tell that’s not gonna work by the time he’s realised what he’s gonna say, “I actually – I’ve actually _tried_ to understand you before – but _I_ can tell you about unessential wastes of time – _you’re_ one, for a start, and _talking_ to you’s another –” not even the fact Komaeda reacts to that with a sharp breath in and increasingly shifty-eyed, flustered-looking swinging of the hammer is going to put him off, “– and expecting to ever get anything _out_ of talking to you, and expecting to ever get anything _back_ – and expecting to go five minutes without getting reminded that –”

“Please!” says Sonia. 

“– oh, wait, Komaeda’s fucking _crazy_ – and so am I for _humouring_ him –”

Her whisper is outraged. “ _Quiet_ in the library!”

Hinata glares at Komaeda, but he’s let out a long, shaky breath and turned to Sonia, so he glares at the clawhammer, but all it’s doing is tapping gently against Komaeda’s thigh, so he glares back at Sonia, who’s raised one hand like an indignant traffic warden, utterly unfazed by the fact Komaeda’s carrying heavy steel weaponry round with him. She’s glowering at Hinata like _he’s_ the one in the wrong here: so Hinata folds his arms, and glowers back at Sonia just as hard. 

“Hinata-san, I have encountered this situation many times before in my reading! Murderers can _often_ be found doing in those they best care for.” The glower drops; a starry look’s overtaking her. Hands clasped below her chin, she rounds on Komaeda. “The pathology of a murderer – it fascinates me! A quite absorbing topic! I don’t suppose you would be willing, perhaps, to tell me a little of your feelings for Hinata-san? Of the emotions that stirred you into wishing to beat down on him?”

“Sonia,” says Hinata, “he’s not –”

The starry look’s overtaking Komaeda, too; the hand that’s not still tight on the hammer he clenches, and presses to his mouth, and then he says, quite earnestly: “I love him, Sonia-san, it’s really perfectly simple!”

“As I suspected,” says Sonia, and tips a look Hinata’s way that twinkles. 

“I love _all_ of you,” says Komaeda. “You, Sonia-san! And Tsumiki-san, and Nanami-san, and Togami-kun, even though he’s dead – _especially_ because he’s dead! – it was very important, I feel, to _kickstart_ proceedings – and Togami-kun certainly got us going! And Kuzuryuu-kun, and –”

“That’s enough, thank you,” says Sonia. 

“– Hanamura-kun, another wonderful loss! The loss of a remarkable, incredibly talented _person_ – but the gain of such hope! I’m sure you felt it, Sonia-san –” 

“That’s _enough_ ,” says Sonia, and the look she’s got is a little less starry and little more distressed, “that’s _plenty_ , thank you –”

“– watching him crisp and bubble up there – the most despairing of deaths! Leading to the most _magnificent_ – the most _breathtaking_ – the most _incandescent_ hope for the survivors! There’s nothing else like it, Sonia-san! I _adore_ you, I _adore_ Hinata-kun, my worthless love is _yours_ –” 

“Komaeda-san!” says Sonia, sternly, and Hinata wouldn’t be able to tell from her perfectly even tone just how close she is to cracking if he didn’t know full well just how hard it is to stay stern in the face of Komaeda getting glassy-eyed and breathless over hope and dead friends and murder. “If you do not bring this conversation to a halt on the _double_ , I will – I will allow Owari-san to push you about to her heart’s content! No holds barred! Not one!”

“Really?” says Komaeda, instantly derailed and instantly excited, and he jams the hammer down into his jeans pocket, hidden below the long tails of his coat. “Do you mean it, Sonia-san? I’d have brought it on myself, after all – and if Owari-san would enjoy it! –”

“Do you – _want_ her to hurt you?” says Sonia, and when she looks to Hinata and crinkles her forehead in utter bewilderment he feels a new heaviness settle down around him at the realisation he’s being turned to as Komaeda’s interpreter – Komaeda’s keeper – Komaeda’s last link left to reality. He wants to be angry. He doesn’t have the energy left in him. 

“You don’t even wanna know,” he says, and he jerks his thumb to the doors. “Komaeda – come on.”

And every time Hinata thinks Komaeda can’t reach greater heights of horrifying ecstasy he’s wrong then, too: his breath skitters out, suddenly uneven, and his voice comes husky when he says, “You’re asking for my company, Hinata-kun? You’re asking for me _beside_ you?”

“I’m asking for you to get out of here,” he says, as he’s turning to leave, and when he looks back Sonia dips her head in gratitude and Komaeda rubs his hands down the sides of his coat in a kind of frantic anticipation; and outside, back in the glare of the mid-morning sun and the relentless rasp of sand below his sneakers across the tarmac paths, he says: “Leave off. Seriously. No one wants to hear your shit.”

“You could kill me _so_ easily,” says Komaeda, “and I’d even handle the logistics! Ropes? – grenades? – paralytic toxins? – I’ve got it under _wraps_! All you’d have to do is pull the trigger – which wouldn’t even _be_ a trigger! – hey, Hinata-kun, do you _know_ how strange the settings for the gas stove in the diner are?”

“ _No_ one wants to hear your shit,” says Hinata, again, very slowly, very deliberately, “ _including_ me.”

“Sure!” says Komaeda, at once. “If you want me quiet – I’m quiet!”

“Good,” says Hinata. Komaeda claps one hand to his mouth and his eyes crinkle amiably above it. Hinata tries not to look at the bulge the clawhammer is denting in his coat. It’s incredibly difficult. “I’m gonna – leave now.”

Komaeda nods. Apart from the rapid eager whistle of his breath behind his hand, he’s keeping extremely quiet. It’s considerably more unnerving than Hinata could have guessed. 

“Don’t follow me.”

Komaeda nods again. 

“Okay,” says Hinata. “Good,” he says, again, and gives Komaeda one last mistrustful look before turning and starting off down the empty path, in the direction of the island bridge. The sun is very bright in his eyes; his shirt’s growing damp beneath his arms; there’s not a sound from behind except the distant crash of waves against the rockpools on the north shore. The path crooks right at a patch of low dry grasses before the bridge and Hinata whips round as fast as he can, just in case – in case _something_ – but Komaeda’s there outside the library, on his own, small and green and white with a hand still pressed across his mouth. 

With his free hand, he waves. 

Hinata crosses the bridge rapidly and doesn’t wave back.


	2. Chapter 2

Hardly anyone shows up to lunch. Tsumiki’s there when Hinata arrives and she’s dripping wet, her bandages hanging loose and sodden; she catches him staring and whimpers, shoves her plate away, folds her arms on the table and hides her face and sobs. 

“You okay?” says Hinata, and she howls in anguish. “Right,” he says, and peels up another slice of ham from the platter between them. “You can tell me if you want, though, Tsumiki, you know that?”

The howls increase in volume. He makes out _Hinata-san_ and _Saionji-san_ and _seaweed collection duty_ , which tells him just about everything he reckons he needs to know. Across the table Nidai is consuming hard-boiled egg after hard-boiled egg with a rapid, ferocious intensity Hinata doesn’t dare interrupt; so he looks to Nanami, who gazes vacantly back at him with her mouth part open. There’s half-chewed bread in there. Hinata winces. 

“I prefer… to spend time alone,” she says, after a moment. She sips her water. She does it so slowly it’s like she’s forgotten the mechanics of her own throat. 

“Yeah,” says Hinata, and he tries not to think about Komaeda when he says it, but the thing about Komaeda is he makes that pretty tricky. “I’m starting to feel you’ve got the right idea.”

They go down to the hotel foyer together anyway, neon flashing across Nanami as she stands at the arcade machine, her mouth slack and her eyes blank, her fast fingers on the buttons and the little noisy blinking dials; and Hinata, sitting on a pool table behind her, frowning out the vast polished window toward the sea. Komaeda and his clawhammer – Komaeda and his death wish – Komaeda and his elaborate, unspecified suicide plans – and Komaeda’s _smart_ , however fucking insane he also is, and in the foyer it’s stuffy and close and it’s not as long as Hinata’d like before he starts feeling restless, and uncomfortable, and like maybe some things are his problem even if he wishes they weren’t. 

The rush of warm air let in as the sliding doors slide open rouses Nanami from her beeps and chimes and flashing pixels. 

“Are you going?” she says, after a moment. 

“Yeah,” says Hinata. 

A chiptune jangles and she hits a button that stops it dead. “To… talk to Komaeda?”

“Uh,” says Hinata, startled, “yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

Nanami absorbs the information. Lights flicker across her face in red then green then yellow then blue then pink then back again. “Okay,” she says. “Don’t let him make you kill anyone.”

“Sure,” says Hinata. He scrubs his hands back through his hair and tries to laugh like the very thought’s ridiculous. “That’s pretty unlikely, Nanami.”

“I’m… glad,” she says, and yanks at a lever that lights up a whole row of flashing coins across the top of the machine and sets a tinny, pre-recorded audience to cheering. 

Hinata forces off his discomfort, and he goes outside. 

 

\----

 

The ridged steel door of the diner is warm from the sun when he pushes it back. Inside it smells like salt and grease and Tanaka’s toxically pungent hairspray. 

“Yo,” says Souda, who’s slouching in a red leather booth seat beside Sonia, his arm slung round a few calculatedly careless inches from her shoulders, and she sits up straight and claps her hands and cries: “Good afternoon! Will you join our delicious festivities, Hinata-san?”

“Thanks, but I’m okay,” says Hinata, and glances up at Ibuki, perched precariously on the shining silver countertop, examining a ketchup bottle shaped like a fat plastic tomato. “Hey,” he says. 

“The only thing more delicious than food is food that _looks_ like food!” she says, knowledgeably, and tosses it to her other hand. “Double the food! That’s _Ibuki’s_ kind of food, mm-hm! Whaddaya think, Hajime-chan?”

“Uh,” he says, “whatever.”

There’s Saionji and Koizumi in the furthest booth, Koizumi pressed uncomfortably in with her back to the window and Saionji twisted round and half-kneeling up beside her, shrilling something hysterical with one small hand knotted in the strap of Koizumi’s pinafore and the other pushing Koizumi’s bangs back from her forehead. No one’s paying them any attention; they’re not paying anyone else any attention, either. Across the aisle, Tanaka drops a solemn nod. Hinata drops one back. “Salutations,” says Tanaka. Hinata ignores him. 

“Komaeda?” he says. 

He’s in a booth of his own with his cheek propped in his hand and his elbow propped on the Formica tabletop, gazing up at Hinata with a look of unadulterated adoration Hinata wishes he wouldn’t use in public; or indeed at all. The basket of fries in front of him is barely touched. “You’re looking well, Hinata-kun!”

“I need to talk to you,” says Hinata, and though he keeps his voice very flat Ibuki slaps her hands down on the counter either side of her and whoops all the same. 

“Twitching! Ibuki’s tension detectors are twitching! Beep beep beep _beeeeep_ –”

“ _Outside_ ,” says Hinata, and he hooks back the door with the toe of his sneaker and steps out, back down onto the sand. 

Komaeda slides out of his booth and follows him; the door to the diner shuts with a clang and a rattle. “What’s –”

“Not here,” says Hinata, and jerks his head toward the beach. Ibuki’s hopped across from the counter to the window and she’s kneeling on a seat, her palms and nose pressed up close to the glass, conical drills nearly vibrating in excitement. 

The sand outside the diner’s just a thin layer over the concrete below and it crunches beneath his sneakers, gritty and sparse. He sets his teeth and trudges on, ignores the sand that trickles down inside his socks and up inside the cuffs of his trousers as soon as he steps down from the path to the fine deep sand of the beach. The sun dazzles very brightly off the sea: which is still, today, lapping gently at the shore. 

“Do you ever stop to think how fortunate we are to be here?” says Komaeda, behind him. 

“No,” says Hinata. 

“In this beautiful place? Able to change the world with the power of our deaths?”

“No,” says Hinata, again, and when he looks round Komaeda’s stopped walking, gazing dreamily out to sea with his arms wrapped round himself. The rise and fall and irregular rise of his skinny chest suggests he’s breathing more heavily than he’s got any excuse to. “Jesus – Komaeda, come _on_ , I just wanna get out of sight from the diner, it’s like – half a _minute_ –”

The sun drags their shadows out a very long way before them. Hinata ignores Komaeda’s, dark and distorted at his side, and trudges on. The dunes block the breeze and it’s stuffy behind them but no one’s going to see them here unless they’re looking, and if they’re looking then Hinata will see them too, crouching, peering through the long grasses at the top, rustling quietly though the day is still. “Right,” he says, and Komaeda stops when he does. “About me killing you.”

“You should definitely do it,” says Komaeda, at once. 

He’s starting to feel a little weird about the way the depth of devotion burning in Komaeda’s ice-chip eyes doesn’t unnerve him any more, but he sets it aside, and clenches his fists once, then twice, and takes a breath. “You said you’d only tell me your plan if I agreed to it.”

“Yep!” says Komaeda, and he nods, encouragingly. 

“Well,” says Hinata. “I’m – gonna do it. I’ll do it.”

“Oh!” says Komaeda, and then he says it again, breathier, and then he links his hands behind his neck and slides them back down around his throat and says it again: “ _Oh-h-h_ ,” and Hinata glowers up toward the bright glare angling down from the top of the dunes and pretends he’s sun-blind to the exhibition Komaeda’s making of himself. “I _knew_ you felt it, Hinata-kun – the minute I saw you I could feel it, you’re _wonderful_! – I’m _nothing_ beside you – I’ll _die_ for –”

“So – what’s the plan?” he interrupts, and tries to smile, because he thinks it’ll probably go down better if he pretends to be even the least little bit as fond of Komaeda as Komaeda is of him; but the smile comes out like a grimace and he gives up and reverts to his frown, shades his eyes against the sun. 

“You know how high the stools are in the diner?” says Komaeda. 

“Yeah,” says Hinata. 

“And you know those racks of surfboards in the supermarket? And the pitchforks in the barn, back at the farmyard?”

“Yeah,” says Hinata, but his level of trepidation’s growing and he shoves his hands down into his pockets instead, drags the word out longer. 

“Well!” says Komaeda, gaily. “Let’s set a time, and you’ll see how it all pans out! You know, Hinata-kun, I couldn’t have a better hand to die by, not even if I had the _world_ to choose from –”

“You said you’d tell me the plan,” he interrupts, and it’s a struggle to keep his voice even. 

“I will! I absolutely will! I’ll walk you right through it! You’ll have a rope to my throat and a blade to my hamstring and I’ll tell you _just_ what to do! We’ll be invincible! Unbeatable! You’ll soar to perfection on the back of my murder! When I think about what you’ll be, once you’ve killed me – well! A _flare_ – fired up into a dark, dark night – blazing with hope, a trail of hope blazing _behind_ you – illuminating the whole _world_ –”

Little white-foamed waves rush in and out and in again across sand that’s dark and smooth and sodden; they bring in no driftwood. There’s never any driftwood. The island’s shores are pristine, all the way around, pale and clean to the point that it’s unnatural. “I – _need_ to know your plan,” says Hinata, and though he’s pretty sure the smile he tries to force is shaky, and too toothy, and blatantly, utterly insincere, it seems to work: Komaeda’s eyebrows crease together in a look of such painful affection he’d feel indecent even attempting to return it. 

“Yeah?” he says, “you’re gonna tell me?”

“This evening!” says Komaeda. “I’ll be with Tsumiki-san till after you guys have had your dinner – she’s who we’re framing, of course, I’m _very_ fond of her!” 

“You’re – we’re framing someone?” says Hinata. He’s not sure whether he’s asking from disbelief or for clarification and he’s not sure whether he’s going to remember any details he drags from Komaeda either way; the sun is warm, and the wash of the sea is regular, and he can feel himself growing lulled into slow, dull horror. “Framing Tsumiki?”

“I’ve spent some wonderful hours with her! She’s very receptive to my ideas, Hinata-kun, did you know that?”

 _Or maybe she’s too intimidated to tell you to go fuck yourself?_ thinks Hinata, but he doesn’t say it because he’s dragged back up the shaky smile meant to inspire a deep confidence in Komaeda; and he squints into the sun, and works on crinkling his eyes like he means it. “News to me,” he says. He tries a laugh but it comes out something like a dry and worried cough, so he doesn’t try again. 

“And we’ll need to incapacitate Nanami-san first,” Komaeda adds, like an afterthought. 

“Incap,” starts Hinata, and then he stops. Sand inside his shoes grits against his feet every time he moves so he tries not to, but when Komaeda nods it’s so eager that the step he takes backward is almost involuntary. 

“However you prefer! So long as she’s not out and about once our plan gets going, I don’t mind _what_ you choose – I’ve seen sleeping medications in the supermarket, if you’d like to –”

“I’m not gonna _drug Nanami_ –”

“You don’t have to! I could do it! Say the word and I’ll –”

“I’m not gonna let _anyone_ drug Nanami –”

“A well-placed wrench to the back of the head! – she’d have a bit of a bump but nothing to worry about, really, afterwards –”

“I’m not fucking _clubbing her unconscious_ –”

“ _I_ could –”

“Oh my God, I’m not letting _anyone_ club her unconscious! I’m not letting anyone hurt _anyone_ –”

“Except for you killing _me_ , of course –”

“I’m _not_ killing you,” snaps Hinata, automatically, and Komaeda falters mid-insane-comeback with a look like he’s realised he’s suddenly lost. “I mean – I’m not gonna, like – I won’t _enjoy_ it, is what I meant – I’m not gonna _like_ killing you, that’s – that’s what I meant to say –”

Komaeda’s smile has dimmed, and it’s not brightening back up. 

“I’ll – definitely kill you, if you like,” Hinata says, weakly. 

“Did you just want to find out my plan?” 

“No,” says Hinata. It’s deeply unconvincing. 

“Were you going to _sabotage_ it?”

“No,” says Hinata, again. It’s still deeply unconvincing. 

“Just my luck!” says Komaeda. It’s so cheery it _ought_ to be unconvincing, on anyone else, but on Komaeda it’s no uncannier than any other uncanny mood of his. “Well, you’re not a Super High School Level Conman, Hinata-kun – at least we’ve been able to work _that_ out together!”

“Yeah,” says Hinata, and when he says: “That wasn’t really on my shortlist to begin with,” it comes out terse and far more pissed than he intended. 

Komaeda laughs anyway. “Honestly, Hinata-kun, I had my suspicions from the start! But I chose to put my hope in you anyway, even knowing you might dash it, because that’s how _strong_ it was – the hope you generate in me!” His mood’s cycled up beyond cheery and straight into breezy unconcern, and he laughs again, at a joke Hinata doesn’t get. “So you see, in dashing those hopes, you’ve really just built a _greater_ hope! – that next time they _won’t_ be dashed! And you’ll follow through! Or _someone_ will follow through!” His mood’s kept going, up past breezy unconcern and into bright, fanatical fervour; when he pushes his hands back through his hair and turns to Hinata there’s that awful cracked madness shining in his eyes. “An utterly indecent, undeserved _bonfire_ of hope, kindled in my heart – and the dreams I know I shouldn’t be permitted – that I’ve never done a _thing_ to earn! – they’re toasting over it! _Roasting_ over it!” 

“Right,” says Hinata. Abruptly he turns and starts back for the diner. 

“But that’s exactly what it’s like!” says Komaeda, and hurries enthusiastically along beside him. “That’s what you’ve built for me! You’re kind, Hinata-kun, you’re _so_ kind, you’re too _good_ to me – _so_ much better than I deserve! –”

“Look,” interrupts Hinata. He’s fallen very suddenly out of the mood to humour Komaeda for a single moment longer than he has to. “You caught me, okay? I’m not killing you. We both get that.”

“I know! It’s wonderful! _You’re_ wonderful! The despair of your betrayal only _heightens_ the hope of –”

“Wait – my _betrayal_?” 

“Sure!” says Komaeda. “You lied to me. You _deceived_ me!”

“But,” says Hinata, and then he realises that of all the reactions he could be having to getting his murder prevention plot uncovered he really, seriously, apparently has gone for _guilty_ – and critically, burningly embarrassed – and _ashamed_ for lying to Komaeda – and it’s fucking _ridiculous_ , there’s no _question_ it’s ridiculous – and realising he feels like shit manages, just like that, to make it worse. “Okay, no – that’s not what I was – I’m not _killing_ you,” he says, “and I know you think I don’t know your plan but – c’mon, if you show up dead after this I’m _gonna_ know what’s happened, aren’t I? Even if I don’t know exactly how you’ve done it I’ll know that you _did_ do it, so your plan was doomed to _start_ with –”

“Then I wish you the very best of luck in proving it, Hinata-kun! So long as _someone’s_ hope shines on after me, I’m content – not, of course, that it matters in the _least_ bit whether I’m content or not – I’ve no right to take my feelings into consideration! I’ve never _earned_ –” 

“I get it,” says Hinata. “Jesus, Komaeda, seriously, I _get_ it already.” The moment they pass out from behind the stuffy windless shelter of the dunes back onto the smooth shore of the beach a sea breeze spits up sand, and Hinata ducks his head and squints against it. A little way down the shore there’s someone paddling – or idling ankledeep in the water, at least, silhouetted by the bright white glare of the sun from the waves. “Also – it _does_ matter that you’re content, like – it matters that we’re _all_ content?” He’s pretty sure he’s only saying it to help hold back the urge to apologise that’s still burning up inside him: and that’s fine by him. “Not just – people who aren’t you. _All_ of us.”

“You know,” says Komaeda, after a moment of quiet but for the rush of the waves, and the rustle of the long grass, and the scuff of Hinata’s sneakers on sand and cement as he trudges ahead of Komaeda back up the slope toward the main road feeling like someone who’s never going to give another inspirational speech again in his life, and hot-faced and excruciatingly self-conscious, “there is _something_ – that’d make me very content indeed, Hinata-kun! If you meant what you –”

“Still not gonna kill you.”

“– just said,” says Komaeda, and then he says, “Ah,” and when Hinata glances round he’s gazing at him with a look so very tender Hinata feels like he’s interrupted something private just by seeing it, and he looks hurriedly back away. “Well, I’m glad you understand, Hinata-kun! It’s all very well to _say_ I matter – but when it comes down to it, you know, you shouldn’t pay the _slightest_ regard to what I want.” 

“What?” says Hinata. “No –” and again, in increasing dismay at Komaeda’s increasing happiness, “no, that’s – seriously, that’s the _opposite_ of what I’m saying, that’s bullshit –”

“What did I ever do to deserve a say? Nothing! Nothing in my whole entire life, so you shouldn’t feel bad about it!”

“I _don’t_ feel bad,” says Hinata. Across the path there’s a pounding beat coming from the squat steel bubble of the diner. “Look,” he says, and stops on the roadside. Komaeda stops expectantly beside him. “I feel _great_ about it, because I’m not _killing_ you. That’s how people are _supposed_ to feel when they don’t kill people. That’s _normal_.”

“Hinata-kun, if you want me alive, you shouldn’t be ashamed to disregard my feelings on the matter!”

“I’m _not_ ashamed –” 

“Or on _any_ matter! It’s the way it works, it’s the natural way of the _world_ –”

“Okay!” interrupts Hinata, in sudden, intense frustration. “Okay! Fine! Whatever you say! I’m not gonna kill you! And that’s because – because you’re _trash_ , or – worthless, or – fuck, I don’t know, is this working for you yet? I’m not killing you because you’re human _garbage_. Okay?” 

Someone shoves open the diner door and music blasts out so loud and brutally discordant it’s like a solid force. Inside, Ibuki’s screaming lyrics like she’s scraping out each one from the lining of her throat by hand and Saionji tumbles out the door shrilling in revulsion, Koizumi dragged behind her by the tie. 

“Are we done here?” says Hinata. The thought hits him for a moment that perhaps he overdid it – perhaps he’s caused some kind of irreversible damage – perhaps fulfilling every single one of Komaeda’s murder-free dreams at once was too much for him to handle, and the speechlessness is gonna extend into full-on catatonia – but he pushes the discomfort away and says: “Because I’m going,” and tries to sound authoritative. “Don’t follow me.”

“No,” says Komaeda, faintly. “No, I… no.”

He trudges up the long rise of the road to the library at the top and then he sits down on its stone step and slips off his sneakers, and peels off his socks, and shakes out the sand from all of them. Palm trees line the road up here, dipping gently with the weight of their own leaves and whispering against each other, and the view’s not much: but between the trunks, down the hill, at the topmost edge of the beach, Hinata’s pretty sure he can see Komaeda. 

“A word of warning! From me to you, from adorable all-seeing headmaster to feckless lust-blind student! Murder by grotesque romantic confession – _still_ murder!”

“Oh my God,” says Hinata, and he balls his socks down inside his shoes and takes off barefoot, as fast as he can. The tarmac’s hot and dubiously sticky; Monobear’s jagged electronic cackle carries a very long way after him on the breeze. 

 

\----

 

Owari’s got her hands planted flat on the table and an expression of undiluted rage when Hinata goes for dinner, and she’s also got a strident monologue going about the lack of chicken drumsticks, so he sits down beside Souda and tunes her out and serves himself. 

“No Komaeda-san?” says Sonia. 

“He doesn’t come _everywhere_ with me,” Hinata says, defensively, but the sparkle in Sonia’s smile once he says it suggests they’re both fully aware that it’s hardly true. 

Ibuki clutches her elbows to her and shivers, so theatrically her extensions splash in her soup bowl. “ _Brrrrr_! – Ibuki feels kinda _creepy_ when no one knows what Nagito-chan’s getting up to!”

“I’m not his _keeper_ ,” says Hinata, and Ibuki doesn’t contradict him but she pushes out her lips and waggles her eyebrows meaningfully down at the little stack of blueberry tarts she’s built up beside her soup, which is definitely not agreement, either. 

“He’s probably gonna kill you!” announces Saionji, and she smacks her hand down beside Tsumiki’s plate so hard it jumps, and Tsumiki yelps in fright and drops her chopsticks with a clatter. Broccoli rolls across the table. “Probably gonna slice up the stupid bitch and get her out our way for good! Probably that’s where he is now, off planning it! Leave the main plot to the main characters, whaddaya think?” 

“I d-d-don’t want to b-be, um –” Tsumiki squeezes her eyes tight shut and clenches her fists and blurts it: “I don’t _want_ to be killed by Komaeda-san!”

Hinata presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “You’re not _gonna_ be,” he says. 

“How do _you_ know?” demands Saionji. “I bet you’re just saying that cos you wanna make me _cry_ – you just wanna make me upset by saying the ugliest person here isn’t gonna die next – you’re a _bully_!” and she throws back her head and dissolves into hacking, melodramatic tears. “Big bro Hinata’s _bullying_ me!” 

Souda looks shiftily round the table and by the time his shifty look’s got back to Hinata no one’s stepped in to help him, so he leans in, and mutters: “Seriously, man, if you _want_ us to just let him, like… roam around free, we all pretty much feel safer if you’ve got an eye on him.”

“If I ain’t got no idea what that psycho’s doing, I start thinking about how maybe I oughta be _hitting_ him a bit,” says Owari. She plants her hands on her hips and glares at Hinata. “Least _that_ way I know what he’s doing.”

“I, too, might feel a certain… ominous _disquiet_ at his absence,” Tanaka informs the room, “were I not prepared at all times to fend off even the _foulest_ of his potential illicit iniquities.”

“Yeah?” says Hinata. He shoves back his chair. The squeak it makes on the floorboards isn’t the aggressive drawn-out scrape he was hoping for so he slams it back in against the table when he’s up. “Well, you’ve got a hamster swimming in your soup bowl. And you’ve been drinking that soup. With the hamster still in it. Good for you.”

“ _Hinata_ -kun!”

“I’m not a Komaeda surveillance service,” he says. There’s a mumble of dissent from Ibuki’s direction; he pushes his hands down into his pockets in fists, and then, stiffly: “I’m going to bed.”

It’s a pale early twilight outside. He passes Nanami, playing an industrious, endless game of hopscotch on a chalked-out grid beside the pool; he passes Koizumi, sitting on the edge of the boardwalk and frowning out at the dimming light, adjusting settings on her camera; he hears Nidai, engaging in what Hinata hopes, from the sheer volume of his far-off grunting, must be some form of strenuous exercise. 

Komaeda’s nowhere to be seen. Hinata wouldn’t want to see him even if he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (it's my birthday tomorrow) (i made a solemn vow i would have this posted before i stopped being a teenager) (i have managed it)


	3. Chapter 3

Hinata jerks awake into sleep-dazed confusion with his face in his pillow, and it’s musty, and it’s late; and he rests for a moment before he rolls over, and right into a damp tacky patch on his sheets.

“Fuck –” 

He shoves himself upright, grimacing, and wipes distractedly at his back. The room is still and shadowed; there’s nothing that should have woken him. A blip of blue light blinks on and off and on again from the mosquito killer plugged in down by the bathroom door, but it’s tiny in the dark, and it’s never dragged him up from sleep before. 

_Rat-a-tat_ and the glass of his window rattles in its frame. 

“Fuck,” he says again, and sits very still for a moment in indecision before swinging his feet off the edge of the bed and dragging his sheet after him. His shadow’s grey and ghostly in the gloom of his room. 

_Rat-a-tat_ : it comes again, smart and precise. 

“For God’s sake,” says Hinata, who has no doubt that it’s Komaeda out there, and he wraps his sheet around his hips and crosses to the window. 

_Rat-a-_

He wrenches back the thin curtains. Komaeda’s hand freezes mid-knock, and then he crinkles up into a smile and waves. 

Hinata slides back the window. “It’s too early for this shit,” he says. 

“It’s never too early for hope!” says Komaeda, cheerfully. “You’re an inspiration to me _every_ hour of the day, Hinata-kun.” There’s a sliver of moon out, glowing through a ring of ocean fog. The long dry grasses along the dunes behind him are vague and pale and murky; he’s breathing out smoke and he’s greyscale in the mist. “Hey, would it be okay if I came inside for a minute?”

“No,” says Hinata. 

“Understandable!” Komaeda agrees, at once. “Of course!” He’s shivering, rubbing his elbows through his coat; Hinata sets his teeth against the chatter they’re trying to rattle out and inches his sheet up higher. He wants his shirt, he wants a jacket, he wants a scarf and gloves and a thermal vest but even more than that he wants to not let Komaeda sense weakness in him, even if that weakness is pneumonia. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want me anywhere _near_ you – you deserve a better class of companion! – a partner with talent to match your own, an other half your _equal_ –”

“You’re right I don’t want you anywhere near me,” says Hinata, “but it’s got nothing to do with my Super High School Level. It’s because it’s the middle of the _night_.” 

“Oh, man,” says Komaeda, ruefully, and then he laughs like the ruefulness was kidding. Far behind him, past where the grasses stop and the sides of the sand dunes drop, breakers wash in: black waves rolling and crashing down, glimmering brightly in the moonlight. 

“Also,” says Hinata, and lets go of his sheet with one hand to scratch out quote marks, “since _when_ , exactly, have you been my ‘other half’? _Outside_ your imagination?”

“That’s the hope I feel just from being near you! Just from being at your window! It can make me _say_ things like that! – presumptuous, improper things – _hopeful_ things –”

“Right,” says Hinata, and he slams the window but Komaeda’s already jammed his hand through the gap and there’s a thud, and then a beat of silence, and then Komaeda’s face screws up in pain. “Oh, _shit_ –”

“It’s fine!” says Komaeda, with a smile so unconvincing it’s twisted itself back into a grimace within moments. “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s – you do what you _want_ , Hinata-kun! You can do it again, if you like! – I’ll stay right here for you, look –” and as Hinata watches, horrified, mesmerised, he uncurls his skinny fingers and lets his hand hang back limp across the windowsill. “There’s no more fitting way to treat me than – getting what use you _can_ from me, and if that’s the use you want – if that’s –”

“It was an accident,” says Hinata, and then Komaeda smiles such a fond, knowing smile at him through the glass that his state of suspended dismay breaks very suddenly and he blurts it again, too loud – “It was an _accident_!” – and slams the window back so wide the curtain flutters in the breeze from it. 

“Well,” says Komaeda, studiedly casual, and tucks his hands back into his pockets, “maybe – another time, you could try it on purpose?”

The cold’s crept in till he’s so cold he doesn’t even notice: his fingers are clumsy when he tries to wrap his sheet round higher. “It’s fucking – two in the morning or something, you woke me up, you got me out of bed – for _this_ –” 

“You’re right!” – and Komaeda’s latched on and lit up and he seizes the sill, folds his arms along it and leans in – “You’re absolutely right, of course you are – I’m an _imposition_! –” his gaze flicking all round the room, wide-eyed and wild-eyed with his shadow cast on the floor beside Hinata in the square of moonlight from the window, and Hinata tries to follow where he’s looking in case there’s anything he shouldn’t be seeing – other than _everything_ , because it’s _his_ room – but there’s no pattern he can work out: his stripped bed, his barely-filled Monobear shelves, his tasselled lampshade, all equally fascinating to Komaeda, and Hinata’s pretty sure he should be panicking harder than he is. “The things you could be doing with this time, if I wasn’t forcing you to waste it on me! I couldn’t _imagine_ –”

“Komaeda –”

“– although I _do_ imagine, of course –”

“ _Komaeda_ –”

“– you’d be _disgusted_ , Hinata-kun, if you knew the shameless reaches of my imagination! The most _vulgar_ thoughts – as awful as everything else about me! – and you know I can’t say I haven’t _wondered_ – about the marvels a Super High School Level imagination must conjure,” and his gaze unfocuses, dreamily, for visions only he can see, “and I think beside my dull, pathetic daydreams – yours must be like _Technicolor_ , Hinata-kun! And I try to imagine what _you_ must imagine – what the fantasies of someone so special must feature! –”

Hinata smacks his hand flat against the side of his cabinet and Komaeda startles into silence. “If you’re just here to make me uncomfortable,” he says, and it’s such an effort to keep his voice low that he forgets to keep it cool, and it comes out hushed, and stoked with irritation, “then congratulations, you’ve done it. Was there anything else, or are you gonna get lost now?”

“It’s about you killing me,” he says, like it should be obvious. 

“You’re still –” starts Hinata, but Komaeda’s cocked his head, looks expectant, so he cuts himself off and says, “You are. Right. Of course you are. _No_.”

“Well – if you’re sure!”

“Totally sure,” says Hinata. “And we definitely got this cleared up earlier.”

“Oh, no, I know we did! And I respect _all_ your decisions, Hinata-kun – I would never fault a thing you’d do! And there’s never a fault, anyway, not when the decisions are _yours_ – but I just wanted to check,” he says, and he smiles, in weird and gloomy shades of grey and moonlit highlights. “Are you _sure_ you’re sure? Refusing the chance to let your hope _live_? Brighter than ever? Refusing to let your talent _soar_?”

“Yeah,” says Hinata, flatly. “I’m okay with all of that.”

“Okay! Great! Of course! – I just thought I should offer you one last chance, that’s all.”

Hinata slides the window back across till it bumps on Komaeda’s elbows, still propped on the sill; and when Komaeda doesn’t move, but tilts his head, and frowns quizzically down, Hinata says: “See you tomorrow.”

“Hm?” 

“Good _night_ , Komaeda,” and when realisation dawns Komaeda steps back at once and lets out one long, shivery plume of breath. 

“It was lovely to spend the night with you like this,” he says. 

“If you start telling people we spent the night together I’m gonna –” Komaeda’s expression has taken a turn for the uncomfortably expectant, “– I’ll never do anything but compliment you again,” says Hinata, and feeling vaguely ineffectual he slides the window home. It clicks into place; he twists down the handle till it locks. 

“Goodbye!” calls Komaeda. It comes in muffled through the glass. 

Hinata draws the curtain. 

 

\----

 

The next morning there’s no breeze and the few clouds straggle nearly motionless out across the horizon. Koizumi’s locking up her cottage when Hinata passes on his way to the hotel, so he waves, and she tucks back her hair and joins him. 

“I’d like to do a sunset project, maybe,” she says. “And I know we’ve all said we won’t – _do_ anything – but I’m still a little uneasy going out alone in the dark here. And I wish I wasn’t.”

“I get it,” says Hinata. “Trust me, I _seriously_ get it.”

Koizumi shoots him a sideways kind of smile, and her hand’s resting idly on the lens cap of her camera and her mouth’s open to speak again when the speakers lodged below the lip of every cottage’s roof blast into shrill, raucous life. “A body has been discovered! A real live dead body! After a short time for investigation, the school trial will begin – so till then, have fun, you bastards!” and Monobear’s still laughing when the sound cuts off and the island falls back into peaceful seashore silence. 

For one blank moment Hinata stands staring at Koizumi, who’s motionless, but for her grip tightening painfully on her camera, and she stares back; and then at once their student files bleep and the silence shatters and the horror hits. 

_One last chance!_ says Komaeda, brightly, beaming out at Hinata from the inside of his memory. 

“Oh my _God_ ,” says Koizumi, and claps a hand to her mouth and turns away, with a sound like retching, choked and dry, “again? – _again_? –”

“We need to –” starts Hinata, but _one last chance one last chance_ – it’s chasing out every other thought louder and faster and more frenetic by the moment till it feels like his heart’s hammering out that same unbearable rhythm, so from his back pocket he fumbles out the file – his hands are too slow, his moves are too clumsy, he’s wasting _time_ – and it takes him a moment to realise what he’s seeing: the silhouette of an unknown body drawn in white. 

_The victim’s body was discovered floating offshore from the central island’s eastern side._

There are question marks in place of a name; there are question marks in place of information. It’s not confirmation and it’s not denial and he presses his hand to the outline like he’ll feel the body’s contours through the screen and get some _answers_ but there’s nothing, except a death, and he feels sick. 

“Do you think they haven’t – fished it in yet?” says Koizumi, faintly, gazing down with repulsion at his file. 

“No idea,” says Hinata. He switches it off and puts it away, and looks round, for a moment, just in case – ragged coattails twitching quickly away behind a wall – sun glinting from the links of a pocket chain – pale hair ducking surreptitiously down behind a windowsill – but the cottages are quiet, and deserted. 

Hinata takes a breath and lets it out and runs for it. 

There’s no one on the boardwalk; there’s no one by the pool; there’s no one in the hotel foyer, or at least there’s no one he catches sight of through the windows as he races by. Shouts carry up from the shore in the still air but nothing’s distinct except for Nidai’s ferocious bellow and Hinata keeps going, jumps the top of a dune and skids hectically down to the beach below with his socks and sneakers filling full of sand. 

At the very top of the beach Tsumiki’s sitting alone in the cool shadows of a palm tree, winding and unwinding one long strip of bandage round her forearm. “Do you know who died?” he yells up at her, as he passes, and she flinches violently, and then she wipes her eyes and shakes her head. 

“Nanami-san s-s-said they’ll c-call me when, when they n-need me – I’m n-no use in the w-w-water, e-except for – for swimsuits, or d-drowning –” Hinata strikes off two more check marks on his mental list of _people who are alive and not Komaeda_ and keeps running. “I’m n-n-no _use_!” Tsumiki howls behind him, “I’m s- _sorry_ –”

The shoreline jackknifes inward and he slews round, sliding wildly on the sand; the distant ruckus gets immediately less distant and down the beach he spots tiny figures, clambering on the jagged low rocks that lead a little way into the ocean from the shore. There’s a dark head in the water, bobbing up and down and up while the others holler frantically; he puts on speed till his breath burns in his throat. 

The brightest and the pinkest of the figures on the rocks turns, and jolts in surprise. “Hinata!”

The sand gets less soft below him and then he’s scrambling his way up onto the rocks too. Souda – barefoot, his overalls a dark and sodden yellow from the waist down – grabs his arm and drags him up, and his expression’s panicked. 

“Have you seen Komaeda?” demands Hinata, and at the same time: “Did Komaeda do it?” Souda blurts. 

They look at each other for one bewildered moment and then a flourish of green cloth and washed-out bleached-out hair swishes through the edges of Hinata’s vision and he spins to catch it: but it’s Sonia, with her skirt hiked up in one hand and her bangs swept back with the other, picking her way up from the water. “Nidai-san requires assistance,” she tells Souda, soberly, and he looks between her and Hinata for a moment before realisation dawns, and he grabs at the zip of his overalls and launches himself down the rocks toward the shallow drop to the sea. 

“Is it Komaeda?” says Hinata. 

Sonia drops her gaze to a stagnant rockpool. “It is currently impossible to say.”

“Fuck,” says Hinata, and he skids his way down the seaweed-slippery rocks toward the water. Nanami’s sitting with her feet scuffed into the sand; Ibuki’s sitting on her other side, one arm wrapped around her, weeping hysterically. “Have you two seen –”

“No,” says Nanami. 

“Ibuki’d got it in her head _Hajime_ -chan would have seen him!” says Ibuki, and dissolves into wails. 

“– Komaeda,” says Hinata, and watching Nidai determinedly front-crawling his way back into shore – great grunts escaping him with every one-armed stroke, a black-clad, white-hooded corpse hitched and bobbing grossly below his other arm – it occurs to him, very suddenly, that he was _disappointed_ to see Sonia – that he’s glad she’s alive but she wasn’t the person he _wanted_ to see alive – and Souda wades out toward Nidai in a greyed vest and neon pink shorts, with a look of utter horror, his overalls shed on a high dry rock. The body nods and floats and drifts from and back toward Nidai’s side, and Hinata looks away, because he suspects he’s going to puke if he doesn’t. If that’s Komaeda – if the face below that pillowcase is Komaeda’s –

“Nidai, you fuckin _dumb_ old guy!”

“Allow me to deal with this business!” Nidai bellows back, but by the time Hinata’s looked round – and Nanami and Ibuki, and Souda, biting his lip, eyes creased up from sheer anxiety, and Sonia, hands folded above her heart – Owari’s already shucked off her skirt and her shirt’s half-unbuttoned and getting more so rapidly. 

“Whatever shithead did it, you _don’t_ kill people at fuckin _mealtimes_ ,” she yells, and hurtles for the sea and dives straight in with grace and just her panties on. 

Heads turn to follow her, ploughing through the clear blue shallows; and then Sonia exclaims and beside her Komaeda clambers up with a fresh dark bruise on his cheek and blood in his hair and a look of great cheer. 

“You’re not dead,” says Hinata. 

“Not yet!” He hops and slides his way down the rocks toward Hinata. “Excited for the trial yet, Hinata-kun?”

“But you’re,” says Hinata, and then he looks back to the water, where Owari has shouldered Souda aside and taken half the body’s weight for herself, dragging it on doggedly behind her toward the rocks, “you were gonna –”

“I was at breakfast with Owari-san,” says Komaeda, and rubs at his bruised cheek. “She was _quite_ convinced I had something to do with the body announcement!”

“Did you?” says Hinata, after a moment spent telling himself he doesn’t need to ask. 

“Oh, Hinata-kun!” No one’s ever sighed his name before; no one’s ever even _said_ it so affectionately. “Why would I give you answers? – when instead I could give you _hope_?”

Down where the water breaks and sprays across the rocks the yelling’s got louder and Souda’s sobbing in great wretched heaves, and Nanami’s on her feet, and Sonia’s running, hollering for Tsumiki and Owari’s got a boost-up on Nidai’s shoulders, shouting curses down at the lot of them: and in the moment Hinata looks from Komaeda to the water Komaeda slips his hand into the crook of his elbow, and squeezes it to his side. “I’d _never_ take the privilege of your investigation from you,” he says, seriously. “There’s nothing more hopeful than overcoming the knowledge you might miss something vital! – nothing more hopeful than doing your best when you know someone’s going to _die_ from your best!” 

He’s alive: Hinata tells himself that’s enough reason to indulge him, not to shove him off or push him over or break free. He’ll go down to the shore in a minute. He’ll join the investigation in a minute. He’ll do it in a minute: just as soon as he’s done with Komaeda. 

“And you know,” says Komaeda, conversationally, and they watch Nanami slip off her shoes and wade in, “selfishly, Hinata-kun, I wouldn’t want to take the glory of that spectacle from _myself_. To be able to watch you fight and conquer! Or fight and _fall_ –” 

“You can stop now,” says Hinata. Nanami’s in as deep as her knees at Nidai’s side and the body floats between them, its clothes drifting loose and black across the water. 

“Either way you’ll be glorious,” says Komaeda. There’s not a shred of doubt in him. “Even _if_ I’m alive.”

They watch Nanami peel back the pillowcase-hood from the victim’s head. “Thanks,” says Hinata, eventually, and Komaeda squeezes his arm tight. 

A moment later Hinata realises he has no idea whether the gesture was in reaction to him or to the blotchy, drowned just-revealed face in the water: and then a moment after that it occurs to him that, either way, it doesn’t _bother_ him. 

A terrible mistrust begins to sink his stomach as it dawns on him: it’s entirely possible – it’s more than _likely_ – that he may never, in fact, be done with Komaeda.

**Author's Note:**

> (if you fancy talking about komaeda and/or hinata and/or both of them together in a alarming and profoundly upsetting relationship, then please do [come hit me up](http://komaedakomaeda.tumblr.com)! they are going to be the best and brightest fictional trainwreck in the world)


End file.
